Review by Frank Plowright
Lisa Cheese is a 320 year old unicorn with a bionic arm living in the futuristic Earth City. She’s only just bought her bun when she witnesses a couple of burger beings acting suspiciously, then set upon by a ninja. Lisa may look mild-mannered, but when provoked a couple of burger kids are no match for her manic form. It seems they represent corporate interests, and an awful lot of independent snack shops have been sabotaged via planted burgers with drugs among the ingredients.
Kevin Alvir’s illustration is all over the place, with perspective and foreshortening afterthoughts, but can be viewed as an energetic version of 1990s punk zine art. Given that sensibility you’d be expecting a story to match, but instead what’s presented is a mystery adventure pitched at young adult level for the most part, allowing for a few swear words and offering a side dish of anti-capitalist rhetoric. That market’s not going to want the messy art and primitive colour Alvir supplies. Moving beyond that, the writing’s as clumsy as the art in places, an early example being a woman calling Lisa by name then explaining she knows the name because she’s looked at Lisa’s wallet.
Lisa wants to be a folk singer, but the reality is her having to take office jobs where Alvir begins introducing a wacky supporting cast, such as the co-worker possessed by a demon. The Ghost Guitar sharing title billing is Lisa’s crush GiGi, transmitting as the epitome of cool, and eventually revealed to have secrets making her even cooler, while Alvir channels in multiple daft superheroes for brief fight cameos.
Random events prompt flashback explanations, intrusive people constantly offer unwanted life stories or viewpoints, and mismatched designs characterise the art. The entire feeling is of Alvir not having any idea of what’s going to be on the following page until he starts it, and while that’s a viable form of experimentation, the naive energy only takes Lisa Cheese so far.
However, more than enough people must feel completely differently, or at least were attracted enough to buy the book as there’s a sequel, The Rock God Complex.
